Brown Creeper

[Ryan Schain]

Brown Creeper

Canon EOS 7D
Canon EF 100-400 mm f4.5-5.6 L IS

1/2000
f/6.3
400 mm
ISO 800
+1/3 EV

[Randy Stout]

Ryan:

Good pose for your creeper, like the rear foot in profile against the sky.
The light angle has thrown him into shadow below. The exposure above looks good.
To my eye, the bird is a bit soft.

To my mind the large dark trunk on the left , although blurred, is still pretty distracting. I might be tempted to crop it out, and add back in some canvas if you want more room for him to look into.

You could also consider a minor crop from the right to diminish the massive perch. That is less of a concern than the trunk on left, IMHO.

Cheers

Randy

[Arthur Morris]

I on the other hand are more concerned with the big trunk on the right in part because it is more in focus. Thus my suggested crop. I like the pose and the head angle but as Randy noted, the sharpness is just not there.

Was this already a large crop? There are some image quality issues especially with the BKGR that looks blotchy....

[Arthur Morris]

And here it is with the lit areas sharpened with a contrast mask and the shaded areas lighted via Tim Grey Dodge and Burn.

[Peter Farrell]

I agree with Arthur on the in focus trunk being the distraction. His final version is a big improvement.
A nice pose on the bird. The creepers around here never seem to stay still long enought to capture an image! Good work.
Peter

[Arthur Morris]

Yes Peter, this species is a most difficult species as they almost never stop moving. Ryan is likely out trying to get some more creeper images :)